The gulf of mexico oil spill a corpus based study of metaphors in british and american media discourse 4

4.3 The American Perspective: An overview of significant metaphor types and the interaction of metaphor categories in the NYT-Corpus and the WP-NYT-Corpus According to PEJ 2010, the na

CHAPTER 4 METAPHORS IN AMERICAN MEDIA DISCOURSE:

NEW YORK TIMES & WASHINGTON POST

4.1 Introduction: Metaphorical Evaluation in American Media

Discourse

Thompson and Hunston (2000) define “evaluation” as an overarching term of reference for the text producer’s “stance towards, viewpoint on, or feelings about the entities or propositions that he or she is talking about” (p.5) This attitude specifically refers to sets of values that encompass notions of

“certainty or obligation or desirability” The idea of evaluation itself is significant as it is seen as the lens through which the world is looked upon, or

in other words, a device for interpreting what is perceived and defining what is transmitted to others Bednarek (2006) goes a step further to claim that these

“short term evaluations” eventually become “long-term values which are as important to our lives as our beliefs” (p.4) The concept of evaluation is key as the main aim of this thesis is to examine the range of metaphors framing the Gulf of Mexico oil spill from large representative corpora of selected British and American broadsheets This is significant as the evaluations and metaphors generated in these popular mainstream broadsheets aid the reader in organising the events and the roles of the various actors when taken in aggregate The IICM will be used as the theoretical framework to mine the relevant metaphors inductively and empirically, through the use of two leading concordancing programmes as springboards for the analysis - WMatrix and

Sketch Engine It is important to note that while the range of metaphors obtained from these 250 articles per broadsheet might not be wholly encompassing, I believe that this preliminary aggregate metaphorical analysis done via the IICM-framework surfaces the relevant core evaluative trends pertaining to the issue under study

Van Dijk (1988b, p.140) states that news is “read and understood in social situations featuring norms, values, goals and interests that are socially shared” News is seen as a type of written discourse that is controlled by a pre-determined range of possible topics for news discourse These categories include national politics, international politics, violence, disasters, sports, art, science and human interest In the case of the BP Oil Spill, the national and international dimensions of the disaster are brought to the fore due to the potentially explosive socio-political context where a British-based company’s negligence has resulted in widespread economic and ecological damage to America, an established international ally This simply means that the potentially ethno-centric dimension of the conflict will be foregrounded as the news values (e.g the shared negativity, recency, proximity, unambiguity, unexpectedness, relevance, superlativeness and facticity of the event) serve to colour the entire catastrophe in an emotionally charged backdrop (Bell, 1991) The metaphorical portrayals of key players in the BP oil spill (and their resultant evaluations) in this thesis will be examined within this socio-political backdrop in a comparative approach

4.2 Utilising the IICM: Phase One – Identifying the candidate USAS

Categories/ Lexical Items for Analysis

The IICM advocates an empirical and inductive approach to the analysis of lexical items in a large corpus This methodology aims to triangulate and potentially either reinforce or provide an alternative view to the findings of traditional metaphor discourse research that mainly relied on the intuitive pre-selection of researcher-determined search strings as a springboard for metaphorical analysis This is achieved by running the NYT and WP corpora through WMatrix for a preliminary overview of the range of semantic categories that are statistically significant in relation to the BNC-Informative Writing sampler The range of top-10 statistically salient semantic domains is captured in Figures 4.1-4.2 respectively

Fig 4.1

USAS Semantic Tagset (A snapshot of the Top-10 semantic domains for the NYT-Corpus)

Fig 4.2

USAS Semantic Tagset (A snapshot of the Top-10 semantic domains for the WP-Corpus)

For the purpose of explicating the IICM-framework, we will be analysing the

WMatrix and are comparatively salient across both corpora The four

empirically suggested USAS domains for further analysis are shown in the list below The corpus and the accompanying rank within the semantic domain are captured in the accompanying brackets after the semantic domains

1 Substances & Materials: Liquid (NYT_1/WP_1)

2 Speech: Communicative (NYT_2/WP_2)

3 Damaging and Destroying (NYT_5/WP_5)

4 Green Issues (NYT_11/WP_7)

It is important to note that while WMatrix provides an empirical suggestion pertaining to the possible conceptual domains for further analysis, the core factor of analyst judgment remains necessary – especially in the selection of domains and the specific lexical items in the broad-list for further metaphorical analysis However, this explicit commitment to empirical evidence as a common starting point for the subsequent extrapolation of conceptual metaphors will enable other researchers to base their disagreements

on the same theoretical platform with respect to the same set of evidence, thus potentially resulting in increased methodological uniformity in the metaphor analysis procedure This also further facilitates the ensuing discussions on the findings in the target discourse

4.3 The American Perspective: An overview of significant metaphor

types and the interaction of metaphor categories in the

NYT-Corpus and the WP-NYT-Corpus

According to PEJ (2010), the narrative in the American press focused

on BP’s culpability and agency in the lead-up to the catastrophic spill as well

as the way its executives responded to the aftermath BP’s lack of remorse (as demonstrated by its lack of transparency in its estimates of the damage), the many public-relations gaffes of its then-CEO, Tony Hayward, as well as its inadequate immediate response to the needs of the Gulf residents accounted for most of the negative media coverage Other economic and legal repercussions as a result of these measures included a 50% loss in value of BP shares, the initiation of possible criminal and civil charges against BP pertaining to the spill, the resignation of Tony Hayward as BP’s chief executive and the promotion of his subsequent replacement, American Robert Dudley

For this analysis, the focus will be placed on the linguistic choices and patterns utilised by the selected broadsheets, devoting attention specifically to the evaluative connotations and the implications of salient metaphorical expressions This is significant as the choice of these mainstream broadsheets, with pronounced liberal or conservative leanings, influences a broad aggregate spectrum of opinions embodied by the range of identified conceptual metaphors Thus, these broadsheets are chosen as a representative sample of the popular mainstream press in an attempt to delineate the overall editorial perspectives

4.3.1 The American Perspective: An aggregate view of significant

metaphors in the NYT-Corpus and the WP-Corpus

Table 4.1 provides an aggregate view of the issue metaphorically embodied by the NYT-corpus and the WP-corpus All the conceptual metaphors were identified and formulated using the IICM

THE OIL SPILL

BP/ OIL INDUSTRY

DEBTOR/CRIMINAL / ENEMY/INCOMPETENCE/ PRAGMATIC

OPPORTUNIST/RECKLESS/ OUTDATED/ GREEDY/

(PERSONIFICATION: NEGATIVE)

25.6% 31.9% 21.1% 22.8%

BP/ OIL INDUSTRY

FIGHTER/ CONTRITE CHILD/ SCAPEGOAT/ ENTREPRENEUR/

PHILANTHROPIST/ COSMOPOLITAN ENTITY/ INVITED GUEST/

THE US GOVERNMENT/ OBAMA ADMINISTRATION

COMPETENT LEADER/ EFFECTIVE LAW ENFORCER

is due to the predominant reference to BUSINESS and POLITICS as WAR or as a

GAME OF STRATEGY in the WP-corpus Taken at face value, these statistics seemingly contradict the corresponding metaphorical portrayal of the key

figures in the oil spill In the NYT-corpus, BP is portrayed as the primary antagonist with 31.9% of the total number of metaphors tokens presenting BP

in a negative, non-sympathetic light as a CRIMINAL, ENEMY, RECKLESS

MISBEHAVING CHILD, UNTRUSTWORTHY or UNACCOUNTABLE PERSON Only 10.4% of the total number of metaphors in the NYT-corpus portray BP in a sympathetic view as a VICTIM OF PARTISAN POLICIES, a COMPETENT PROBLEM SOLVER or a RESPONSIBLE CORPORATE CITIZEN This preliminary pattern seems to indicate a more nationalistic editorial stance adopted by the NYT-corpus – as most instances of the WAR/CRIME/THREAT conceptual key make a direct antagonistic reference to BP This is in contrast to the WP-corpus where BP’s agency in the spill is hedged by the overarching reference

to BUSINESS and POLITICS as a WAR/GAME OF STRATEGY that necessitates a certain degree of political and social compromise, underscored by rational cost-benefit analysis, rather than in direct reference to BP’s culpability

As mentioned earlier, the data sample seems to indicate that the corpus advocates a more balanced view of BP with a non-sympathetic portrayal taking up a significantly lower 22.8% of the identified metaphors and a sympathetic portrayal of BP taking up a more significant 16.2% This seems to indicate that the pro-business range of pragmatic sentiments takes prominence in the WP-corpus Understandably, both broadsheets portray the various branches of the US Government/Obama Administration in a negative light – with the main difference embodied by the NYT-corpus - where there is

WP-an additional negative attribution of current policies WP-and government machinations to the previous Bush administration I will now proceed to

analyse some significant metaphorical patterns and embodiments in accordance to the metaphor classifications

4.3.2 The American Perspective: An analysis of the interaction of

metaphor categories in the NYT-Corpus and the WP-Corpus

The identified metaphors are divided into four categories The first three categories are derived from Lakoff & Johnson’s (1980) seminal work,

comprising Structural Metaphors, Ontological Metaphors and Orientational/Spatial Metaphors The final category is Image/Analogy- based Metaphors (Gibbs, 1999; Lakoff, 1992) Taken in tandem, these four

categories of metaphors cover the full spectrum of metaphors in the target discourse The statistical distribution of these metaphor categories across both corpora is captured in Tables 4.2-4.3 below

Table 4.2

An overview of the Metaphor Type Distribution in NYT

NYT-Corpus (158 Types out of 291, 566 words)

An overview of the Metaphor Type Distribution in WP

WP-Corpus (164 Types out of 293, 519 words)

metaphorical density of 158 metaphor types out of 291, 566 words whilst the WP-corpus contains 164 metaphor types out of a slightly larger base of 293,

519 words Much like Semino’s (2002) study on the metaphorical representations of the euro in British and Italian newspapers, this seems to indicate a fundamental similarity in metaphorical usage between the two American broadsheets This can also be attributed to the “mutual influences between reports” due to the extensive scope of the disaster In line with our commitment to empirical salience, this analysis will be structured mainly in accordance to three of the more statistically significant categories, namely Ontological Metaphors, Structural Metaphors and Analogy-Based/Image Metaphors

According to Lakoff & Johnson (1980, p.25) & Kovecses (2002, p.37), ontological metaphors provide much less cognitive structuring for concepts than structural metaphors but they assign a tactile link to objects and substances for conceptual concretization A prominent sub-type falling into this category would be that of Personification Metaphors Lakoff & Johnson (1980, p.34) state that personification “allows us to make sense of phenomena

in the world in human terms on the basis of our own motivations, goals and characteristics”, thus making it a powerful explanatory tool to structure abstract concepts to the masses On the other hand, Gibbs (1999, p.32) defines Image and Analogy-Based Metaphors as those used when mental images or core embodiments from one source of knowledge is mapped onto the target domain, rather than a systematic inter-domain mapping e.g the reference to an

“hourglass figure” This seems to indicate that only a specific aspect of the source domain is used to structure the target concept rather than that of a

structured cognitive mapping The analysis for this chapter will begin with a focus on Ontological Metaphors as they comprise a significant proportion of the metaphor count in the NYT-corpus (72.2%) and WP-corpus (68.3%) respectively

Structural Metaphors refer to the typical cross-domain metaphors and similes in the traditional form of conceptual metaphor where an abstract concept is understood by the structure of the source concept (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p.3; Koveces, 2002, p.37) Taken in tandem, these conceptual metaphors demonstrate their connections to political affiliations and the resultant evaluative stances within the targetted newspaper corpus Thus, structural metaphors play a significant role in structuring the text-consumer’s world-view when consumed in the aggregate The IICM framework empirically demonstrates the statistical salience of certain conceptual metaphors found within the selected corpora These differences are essentially gleaned from the use of “lexical and phraseological units in their socio-pragmatic contexts” through the IICM framework (Musolff, 2004, p.9) The specific semantic and potentially metaphoric connotations of the specific lexical and phraseological units are determined through the use of two leading online versions of corpus-based dictionaries, namely the Macmillan Online Dictionary and the Collins Online Dictionary This forms a core step prior to the formulation of the actual range of conceptual metaphors This core step essentially reflects the commitment to empirical discourse data as the basis of any elicited claims on the metaphorical concepts that underlie the discourse The analysis for this chapter will take the following structure:

• A comparative analysis of the portrayal of BP and the Obama Administration in the context of foregrounding American nationalistic interests in the NYT and WP-corpus (“Damage”/ “History”/

“Rhetoric”/ “Environment”)

• A comparative analysis of the pre-eminence and the nature of the

WAR/CRIME/THREAT conceptual keys in the NYT and WP-Corpus (“Oil_Modifies”)

4.4 The Power of Political Affiliations: The portrayal of BP and the

Obama Administration in the American Broadsheets

One of the most pervasive metaphorical types in the NYT & corpus is one where the key protagonists (e.g BP, the Obama Administration, the US Government) are personified or presented as animate beings or living entities Overall, the most salient personification sub-type within both corpora will be the foregrounding of BP as a key player within the

WP-WAR/CRIME/THREAT scenarios In the most empirically salient semantic domain in the NYT Corpus (Substances and Materials: Liquid_NYT_1: Oil), the overwhelming portrayal of BP is couched within the CRIME/ RECKLESSNESS/ INCOMPETENCE/ ERRANT CHILD scenario, comprising a significant 31.9% of the NYT-corpus metaphor tokens This contrasts with the 22.8% of the range of metaphor tokens found in the corresponding WP-Corpus A good example of the associated evaluative prosody in the NYT-corpus with the node word (“Oil”) can be seen in Texts 4.1-4.2 below In accordance to the proposed IICM, the node word and the collocation

(“Company”) are empirically suggested by the word sketch function in Sketch Engine

4.4.1 The Power of Political Affiliations (Substances and Materials:

Liquid_1_NYT: ‘Oil’)

Text 4.1

NYT-Corpus – Screenshot for “Oil Company” in SkE

Text 4.2

NYT-Corpus – Screenshot for “Oil Company” in SkE

Text 4.1 shows how “oil companies” like BP are portrayed as having a

“stranglehold on American policies and behaviour”, resulting in the “choking”

of the American working peoples’ social and economic futures The lexical item - “stranglehold” - is defined by the Macmillan Online Dictionary as “the strong power over someone or something that prevents them from having any freedom to act” on top of the literal definition of a “tight hold around someone’s neck that makes breathing difficult” The deliberate and strategic use of this ontological metaphor, personifying BP and other giant corporations

as POWERFUL FOREIGN AGGRESSORS directly threatening the survival of

American citizens is aimed at striking a chord with the text consumer This is attributed to the way BP is de-legitimised from its place in American society,

by being portrayed as a foreign intruder that disrupts and destroys an ordered universe An associated schema would be the inability of the US government/Obama Administration to enforce order despite American citizens being made recipients of violent material actions - such as being placed in a potentially fatal stranglehold This is further reinforced by the way the direct reference to physical violence is merely countered by President Obama merely

“speaking critically” about the cozy relationship between the oil companies and the federal government This implies that instead of taking the necessary action to restore order, the Obama Administration is more concerned about shifting blame and claiming the moral high ground through the use of religious allusions The irony in President Obama’s attempt at distancing his own agency from the issue can be seen in the way he separates the actions of the

“federal government” from that of his own administration in a veiled reference

to the inherited failings of the previous Bush Administration This culminates

in the reference to religious values where the “unholy alliance” between the oil corporations like BP turns democratically elected officials from the Bush administration into subservient “handmaidens” The disturbing voluntary emasculation of the federal government and their shameless worship of mammon mutually reinforce the resultant overarching and overlapping conceptual metaphors portraying BP and government agencies as

ACCOMPLICES and INCOMPETENT entities

Text 4.1 clearly demonstrates the strong anti-business, anti-Republican leanings from the metaphors mined from this extract The pervasive

underlying metaphor that “THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS A CORRUPT LEADER” is further reinforced in Text 4.2 where President Obama clearly attempts to portray himself as an effective leader who identifies strongly with his constituents but yet is willing to “shoulder the responsibility” in times of duress However, the strong anti-Republican slant can be demonstrated in the way it was clearly mentioned that it was the Bush administration that “fostered

a cozy, sometimes corrupt relationship with the MMS” This is reinforced by the semantic connotations of the core lexical units “cozy”, “corrupt” and

“unholy alliance” in the Macmillan and Collins Dictionary where the concept

of dishonest, illegal, and immoral activities take precedence in the pursuit of money, power and other benefits Attribution was also directly placed on BP who is portrayed as the “owner of the stricken well” The attribution of agency for the disaster is made complete when Birnaum, the head of the MMS was made to step down and attribute the cause of the disaster to the “flaws in the current system (Birnaum) inherited”, in a thinly veiled reference to the practices of the previous Bush Administration

4.4.2 The Power of Political Affiliations (Substances and Materials:

Liquid_1_WP: ‘Oil’)

In a clear contrast, the more conservative WP-corpus overtly attributes agency of the spill to the Obama Administration’s mismanagement and foregrounds the interconnected portrayals of BP as both a positive agent of economic change as well as the victim of partisan politics Text 4.3 clearly tears down the hyperbolic claim by the Obama Administration that “Bush did

it” while foregrounding the idea that Obama’s own interior secretary had worked diligently to solve the problem “from the day he took office” The WP-article clearly traces the sequence of events to April 2009 where the Obama Administration’s Interior Department provided a “categorical environmental exemption” for BP, thus positioning the Obama Administration

as at least partially culpable The explicit agency attribution in this short extract is aimed at dispelling the myth of polarity, where the Obama administration is seen to be absolving itself from all responsibility in order to mitigate its own failure at containing the spill This is clearly encapsulated by the innovative phraseological unit “the buck stops”, adapted from the traditional expression “passing the buck” This encompasses the core idea that the Obama administration should not make someone else deal with something that his administration should take responsibility for, foregrounding the ontological metaphor that personifies the Obama administration as an

INCOMPETENT LEADER who “passes the buck”, cedes control and who lacks foresight and specialist knowledge

Text 4.3

WP-Corpus – Screenshot for “Oil Giant” in SkE

Text 4.3 acknowledges the limitations faced by both Bush and Obama,

as they cannot be held accountable for the damage caused by unforeseen forces of nature or by unheralded acts of negligence by others This view is further tempered by acknowledging the unrealistic expectations placed upon the “presidential cult of personality” inherent in the nature of American politics However, a particular frame for evaluation is evoked with the reference to Obama’s lack of modesty as well as his superlative prior claim that his ascent to the presidency will be the moment when “the planet began to heal and the rise of oceans began to slow” Hence, the overarching metaphor seems to point towards the portrayal of Obama as a SHREWED POLITICAL TACTICIAN and INCOMPETENT LEADER pushing away responsibility at a crucial juncture

Text 4.4 demonstrates how the WP-corpus foregrounds the opposite end of the political spectrum, highlighting the pragmatic political and economic costs of pursuing “justice” and full compensation at all costs

Text 4.4

WP-Corpus – Screenshot for “Oil Giant” in SkE

The extract in Text 4.4 claims that in the process of justifying an out war against BP in an effort to exonerate his administration’s failings, Obama is in fact on the brink of threatening the interests of an entire nation (Britain), often seen as a staunch ally in matters of international policy

all-Obama’s deliberate reference to BP’s old name, “British Petroleum” (instead

of the revamped “Beyond Petroleum”) is derisively perceived as “rabid denunciations” and a mindless demonstration of “Anglophobic spite”, attributed to the actions of a man floundering for political survival According

to the Macmillan Online Dictionary, the expression “rabid denunciations” denotes a “very strong public criticism of someone or something” or

“behaving in an unreasonable way in order to make a change” Thus, the ontological reference to the Obama Administration being an “UNREASONABLE PERSON” and a “LEADER WITHOUT FORESIGHT” is foregrounded This is done

in tandem with the clear portrayal of BP as a VICTIM OF PARTISAN POLITICS, being “continuously beaten up on the airways” by a vicious bully, in spite of its significant contribution to both the American and British economies

Hence, an explication of the statistical differences in the range of Conceptual Metaphors identified in Table 4.1 seems to be demonstrated by the overarching political affiliations that undergird the selected ontological representations In the NYT-corpus, the recklessness of the oil industry (BP)

as well as the failings of the previous Bush Administration were prominently highlighted, comprising 36.4% of the entire range of ontological metaphors in the NYT-corpus This can be seen in the range of conceptual metaphors mined from the IICM (BP/THE OIL INDUSTRY IS AN UNSCRUPULOUS BUSINESSMAN, THE OIL INDUSTRY IS AN UNREPENTANT CRIMINAL/ CORRUPT PERSON, THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION IS A CORRUPT LEADER) On the other hand, the data from the WP-corpus seems to foreground the pragmatic political and business costs of blindly castigating BP, a major player in the cornerstone oil industry This can be clearly seen in the way the altruistic claims of the Obama

THE US GOVERNMENT IS A LEADER WITHOUT FORESIGHT (INCOMPETENCE)

SCENARIO: THREAT/ INCOMPETENCE

THE OIL INDUSTRY IS

A UNSCRUPULOUS

BUSINESSMAN

(THREAT)

AN UNHOLY ALLIANCE IS A CORRUPT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

IS A CORRUPT LEADER (CRIME)

Figures 4.3-4.4 demonstrate the pictorial representation of the range of conceptual metaphors discussed in this section, mined from the selected abstracts from Texts 4.1-4.4 arranged in a coherent framework These pictorial representations are essentially an adaptation of Grady, Taub & Morgan’s (1996) proposed diagrammatic representations of compound and primitive metaphors It is proposed that such a diagrammatic representation will provide

a pictorial grasp of the overarching entailments and the range of conceptual metaphors employed in the analysis of this target discourse This classification essentially refines CMT by organising potentially sprawling metaphorical complexes into a coherent framework

4.4.3 The Power of Political Affiliations (Damaging and Destroying_5

_NYT: ‘Damage’/ ‘Collapse’)

Figure 4.5 below provides a quick overview of the range of collocations for the node term “economic damage” and “reputational damage”

in NYT This set of amalgamated collocations is empirically suggested by the word sketch function embedded in Sketch Engine All 13 instances generated are captured in Figure 4.5 below:

a “responsible corporate citizen”, exploiting the subconscious emotional associations in the readers in the pursuit of justice for the aggrieved This amalgamated concordance excerpt seems to embody the generally nationalistic stance foregrounded by the NYT-corpus in the framing of this issue

The seemingly overtly partisan stance adopted by the NYT-corpus is effectively encapsulated in Text 4.5:

Text 4.5

NYT-Corpus – Screenshot for “Collapse” in SkE

A distinctly pro-Obama/anti-Bush stance is foregrounded in Text 4.5 This is clearly seen in the critical reference to the Bush Administration’s

“shambolic response to Katrina”, even attributing the current “collapse in government competence and effectiveness” to the “Bush years” The poignant invoking of the analogy-based metaphor (THE BP OIL SPILL IS THE NEW HURRICANE KATRINA) serves to exploit the traumatic emotional associations only shared by the Americans This projects a particularly powerful representation of the extent of Bush’s failure, particularly with the core reference to the lack of organisation and incompetency that is entailed by the lexical items, “shambolic” and “collapse” in competence The intertwined metaphorical portrayal of the Bush Administration as an INCOMPETENT

LEADER and that of BP as a RECKLESS CRIMINAL who failed to take “adequate precautions” simultaneously works to mitigate the Obama Administration’s agency in the spill, legitimising his continued leadership of the country This pro-Obama stance is further demonstrated in the illogical separation between the Obama Administration and the “federal regulators (Minerals Management Service)”

Text 4.6

NYT-Corpus – Screenshot for “Damage” in SkE

Text 4.6 above foregrounds Obama’s “well-intentions” and downplays his culpability in the entire saga, thus potentially affecting the reader’s views

of the situation Instead of castigating the Obama Administration’s gullibility and rightfully attributing the cause of the tragedy to multiple government oversights, Text 4.6 distills the entire issue in to a “single biggest mistake”: that of Obama’s “default assumption” that all parties are as “well-intentioned”

as he is This is embodied by his “failure to challenge BP’s version of events from the start” The lexical item “failure” in this context specifically denotes a milder situation where a person does not do or fulfill what is expected This textured portrayal is especially powerful as it simultaneously serves to

foreground the endearing aspects of Obama’s personality while graciously acknowledging his shortcomings (i.e that Obama makes mistakes just like any normal person) It also serves to over-simplify the agency in the disaster by attributing it to the foreign company cast in the role of the “other” This is done through the persistent metaphorical portrayal of BP as an UNREPENTANT CRIMINAL and UNSCRUPULOUS BUSINESSMAN who consistently “understated the spill’s severity, overestimated the progress of the repair operation and low-balled the environmental damage” According to the Macmillan Online Dictionary, the lexical items “understate” and “overstate” have the connotation

of making concessions with regards to the “truth, accuracy or importance” of the stated topic, underscoring the personification of BP as both

UNSCRUPULOUS and UNREPENTANT This is juxtaposed by the underlying discourse that promotes the castigation of BP while highlighting Obama’s redeeming qualities as a leader and as a person

Finally, Text 4.7 expresses the full-blown anger and disappointment experienced by the American general public over BP’s actions The

“widespread public outrage” as well as the general “condemnation” leveled upon BP is aimed specifically at “dramatizing events and polarizing contrasts

in order to emphasise the newsworthiness of the contents of the article” (Semino, 2008, p.31) The repeated casting of BP into the role of the

UNSCRUPULOUS BUSINESSMAN and UNREPENTANT CRIMINAL serves to reinforce this conceptualization of reality where the confrontational aspects of the issue are unabashedly foregrounded such as the “widespread public outrage”, defined as “a strong feeling of anger and shock at something you feel is wrong or unfair”

Text 4.7

NYT-Corpus – Screenshot for “Damage” in SkE

Thus, Texts 4.5-4.7 foreground Chilton’s (1996) assertion that “power”

is defined as the “capability and resources, which include the discursive power

to promote and impose concepts as the basis of preferred policies (viewpoints)” (p.6) This section has provided a brief overview of the range of structural and ontological metaphors used in the conceptualisation of BP and the Obama Administration and shows how specific metaphorical representations have the potential become the naturalized view that is virtually irrefutable over time

4.4.4 The Power of Political Affiliations (Damaging and Destroying_5

_WP: ‘Damage’/ ‘Collapse’)

In direct contrast, an excerpt of the same node term “economic damage” in the parallel WP-corpus showcases a different construction of the roles played by BP and the Obama Administration Figure 4.6 below showcases the range of concordance lines associated with the node term

“economic damage”:

“quickly enough to prevent permanent economic damage” It is interesting to note how the remaining concordance lines help to mitigate BP’s role by making the generic reference to “oil companies’ liability” – in contrast to the sole reference to BP preferred in the NYT-corpus The remaining general references to the resultant economic damages are also made without a direct reference to agency, where the focus lies more on the objective quantification

of the cost without an overt evaluation on BP’s role in the entire catastrophe

This seeming contrast in political affiliations is effectively shown in Text 4.8 below:

Text 4.8

WP-Corpus – Screenshot for “Damage” in SkE

Where the NYT-corpus seems to construct the reality where the Bush Administration (and by extension, the Republican Party) shares equal culpability with BP for the oil spill, the WP-corpus depicts the Obama Administration’s “toothlessness”, as embodied in the statement that the administration’s criminal investigation of BP “has little chance of getting executives locked up” Furthermore, instead of attributing agency to BP, Text 4.8 opts to castigate then-BP CEO, Tony Hayward instead, effectively attributing the failures of the company to one rogue individual The mitigation

of BP’s agency is also foregrounded in the perceived culpability of both

“corporations” and the “federal government” This is a significant departure from the ideology of the pursuit of justice at all costs advocated in the NYT-corpus Hence, the combined evaluative stances of making Hayward the political scapegoat as well as the foregrounding of shared culpability (without

an overt nationalistic/xenophobic stance) seems to be a concerted attempt not

to damage the prospects of future economic collaboration between British and American Governments Hence, this seems to indicate that a pragmatic, pro-business stance is advocated in these selected concordances in the WP-corpus

Texts 4.9-4.10 highlights separate aspects of the WP-corpus’ editorial stance In Text 4.9, President Obama is portrayed as a SHREWED POLITICAL TACTICIAN, driven mainly by the aim of political survival rather than genuine concern for the true victims of the oil spill:

Text 4.9

WP-Corpus – Screenshot for “Damage” in SkE

Text 4.9 effectively constructs the reality of the oil spill in terms of the extent of the resultant economic damage This personification of the “fishing, tourism and shipping industries” as VICTIMS draws attention to the dire straits

of these economies The lexical item “damage” encompasses the “injury or harm impairing the function or condition of a person or thing” or the negative effect on an entity” While the overt confrontational and aggressive attribution

of the damage to concrete agents is avoided in this WP-corpus, it is clear that there is a strong underlying negative sub-text directed at the Obama Administration’s efforts in containing the disaster Instead of extolling the virtues of Obama’s hands-on approach to “see the environmental damage for himself” and to “check on the federal response”, Text 4.9 seems to place great emphasis on the Obama Administrations preoccupation with the political aspect of the spill i.e in avoiding the “mistakes made by President George W Bush” instead of focusing on the core issue of alleviating the suffering of the true victims of the spill – the people and the associated industries Another

insidiously layered sub-text seems to indicate the Obama Administration’s incompetence as it highlights the administration’s inability to cope with a disaster that pales in comparison with the “much more dire Hurricane Katrina” The oil spill is also portrayed as a FIRE/EPIDEMIC to be “contained”, foregrounding the key notion of the entire disaster as an unforeseen

DISASTER/ILLNESS rather than a man-made disaster with culpable agents Thus, it is clear that the focus placed on the Obama Administration’s actions and intentions mitigates BP’s agency in the disaster by personifying the White House as a SHREWED POLITICAL TACTICIAN that is removed from the concrete concerns of the citizenry This is further emphasised by the intertwining metaphorical reference to the oil as a SICKNESS rather than placing the focus

on BP’s role as the key agent in the oil spill

Text 4.10 utilises an overarching structural metaphor that is grounded

in our experience of physical journeys In this case, the overarching Structural Metaphor is the idea that A HEALTHY ECONOMY IS A MOVING ECONOMY:

Text 4.10

WP-Corpus – Screenshot for “Damage” in SkE

Text 4.10 unabashedly frames the entire conflict in pragmatic economic and business terms, grounding the entire discourse in the discourse

of ECONOMIC SURVIVAL The highlighting of the absurd liability cost of “$10

billion” from the initial “$75 million limit” seems to personify BP as the

VICTIM OF PARTISAN POLITICS AND UNFAIR LEGISLATION The image metaphor employed of the economy as a MOVING VEHICLE in need of “oil that comes from offshore” seems to exploit the literal connection between the convenient extension of the notion of petrol as a core necessity for the continued functioning of a vehicle as well as the US economy’s need for oil This ontological reference to the oil industry as a CORE CONTRIBUTOR TO THE ECONOMY in tandem with the unabashed pragmatic ideology advocated thus serves to simplify a complex and controversial socio-political issue into the basic need for survival Hence, it is clear that the recurrence of metaphorical expressions to do with the pragmatic economic survival contributes to the overall intra-textual coherence of the BP oil spill as embodied by the WP-corpus

4.4.5 The Power of Political Affiliations (Speech: Communicative_2

_NYT: ‘Response’/‘Rhetoric’)

The same editorial perspectives seem to run through most sections of the NYT-corpus This is further demonstrated in the “Speech: Communicative” USAS domain A quick overview of the selected node term empirically suggested by the Sketch Engine is captured in Figure 4.7 below:

Fig 4.7

Collocates for ‘RESPONSE’ (NYT Corpus) – ‘ADMINISTRATIVE’ in Word Sketch (All 8 instances – Possessor)

It is clear that six out of eight instances of the node term

“administration’s response” casts the Obama administration in a favourable light while simultaneously drawing negative parallels with the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina This is seemingly in contrast

to the pro-business, pragmatic stance that seems to predominate the corpus This editorial perspective is captured by personifying the Obama administration as a COMPETENT LEADER “taking responsibility for his administration’s response”, “stepping up” the response in an “intense” manner

WP-as befitting the gravity of the situation This is contrWP-asted with the view of the previous Bush administration’s “pitfalls” and “slow responses”

partisan-Texts 4.11-4.12 below further expound on this partisan ideology:

Text 4.11

NYT-Corpus – Screenshot for “Response” in SkE

Text 4.11 portrays President Obama as a WAR GENERAL, “ordering” a moratorium on new offshore drilling leases and “dispatching” cabinet

metaphor presents the consequences of the oil spill in vivid and catastrophic terms, legitimising Obama’s leadership in a time of crisis The metaphorical reference to POLITICS as WAR is also captured in the way the White House was trying to “avert the political damage inflicted on the (former Bush administration)” The portrayed decisiveness and efficiency of the Obama administration’s response is exploited to great effect by the deliberate contextual reference to Hurricane Katrina, widely perceived as one of the thorns in the side of the Bush administration’s legacy The power of this contextual metaphor (THE BP OIL SPILL IS THE NEW HURRICANE KATRINA) effectively reinforces and exploits the parallel connections between the two disasters and evokes memories of the Bush administration’s “slow” and inadequate response This castigation of the Republican Administration is continued in Text 4.12 below:

Text 4.12

NYT-Corpus – Screenshot for “Response” in SkE

It is important to note that this “witch hunt” scenario works to set out an opposition between the Democrat and Republican parties and convey a negative representation of the Bush administration in the process This is achieved through the unabashed reliance on ethical discourse However, some